


our december sun is setting

by pendules



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Goodbyes, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-15
Updated: 2015-08-15
Packaged: 2018-04-14 18:54:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4575876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pendules/pseuds/pendules
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"In April, Xabi's in the stands again. You know he's there, but you don't look for him, you don't think, <i>This is the last time.</i>"</p>
            </blockquote>





	our december sun is setting

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote most of this in January right after the news broke. This is utterly self-indulgent, probably terrible, and has basically nothing at all to do with the reality of last season. 
> 
> Anyway, happy S/X day! :)

In April, Xabi's in the stands again. You know he's there, but you don't look for him, you don't think, _This is the last time._ You've thought that too often in the last couple months, about too many things. Mundane things, important things. It doesn't stop hurting. 

The next time, maybe you'll both just be watching.

*

Sleeping's hard. And it wasn't supposed to be like this. It was supposed to be easier now, better. But it's been exhausting, since January. Your heart's tired. A part of you just wants it to be over. Done.

You can't sleep in the city you've lived all your life, the city you've never left. 

It's turned on you now. Maybe it knows.

*

You stand in a hotel hallway in Liverpool and it feels wrong. So many defining things have happened to you in hotel rooms, but this shouldn't be one of them. This belongs in the real world. You want to keep this.

But maybe - maybe you need an escape from the real world too.

You knock.

*

It kind of all slips away when you see him, the front you've been putting up, the brave face you've been wearing, to let the world know _it's okay, I'm okay, I'm going to survive this, we all are._ It's not the end of the word, although it may feel like it. (But what is the end of the world if it's not destroying everything you've ever known about your life and yourself in one fell stroke? The end of the world has to come when we no longer recognise ourselves.)

It feels like you're falling in slow motion - and then he's there, right in front of you, pulling you in gently until your chin's on his shoulder, your hands are braced against his back, and it doesn't feel like an embrace, it feels like you're leaning against him, like he's just keeping you on your feet.

You don't move for a while; there's no sound but heartbeats and the ticking of a clock somewhere in the distance. It almost seems to slow down gradually.

Then he lets out a heavy breath, and he's tightening his arms around you, fitting you together properly. You close your eyes, turn your face so you can bury your nose in his hair, and he's so warm and he still smells the same, and god, yes, this, _this_ is exactly what you needed. Just this. And then you both just _stay_ , right there.

And maybe that's the real secret - he's always been holding you up. While you've been holding up a team and a city and boulders and mountains.

He doesn't let go. Just says _Hey, hey_ , quietly, stroking your hair, but doesn't ask _Are you okay?_ because you're so, so tired of telling people you're fine. He knows you're not.

It's totally fucking ironic and also totally predictable that you've spent the last few months comforting an entire city of people because you're leaving them. Every goal, every word, it was all just consolation.

You - you need a break. You need some comfort too. He's the only one who can give you that now. The only one who knows, really knows, both sides of you (Steven Gerrard, Captain, Talisman, Leader of Men; Steven Gerrard, human being), and loves them equally. Knows what this is doing to you, knows that you're terrified and relieved, knows that you want to laugh and cry and scream, a little, because it never was supposed to happen, but it's the only thing that _can_ happen.

The legend was supposed to stay forever; the man has to walk away before he disappears forever.

*

And then you finally pull apart and he's looking at you. And you've become pretty good at avoiding other people's eyes recently, but you don't want to anymore.

It's just - You're sick of people looking at you like they're at your funeral or something. Xabi doesn't look at you like that. He looks at you like something else is dying, something between you, something you can't save.

"You broke my heart, you know." And you know he's been saving that until he saw you; he was perfectly composed on the phone. Xabi's just as good at pretending as you are. Maybe that's why this works.

"You broke mine first." And it's not fair, not really. You got over it. A long time ago.

"Maybe I deserved it then." There was a time you thought his heart was unbreakable. That nothing could hurt him. That he'd just get up and walk it off the way he once tried to walk off a broken ankle. 

It's strange, that this is what had to happen for you to really see him.

*

He leads you over to the bed, and you just lie facing each other, curved inwards like a pair of parentheses. His hand's still intertwined with yours between you and it's your only point of contact. You definitely do not think about being on the other side of the world, having an ocean between you. 

He isn't looking at you anymore.

"You look terrible," he says, and his hands are cold now, and you hate how he sounds, he isn't supposed to sound like that. Like it's physically hurting him to see you like this. Xabi's supposed to laugh at you and be honest, irreverent, tell you all the things you don't want to hear but need to when you're being a stubborn idiot. But maybe it's your turn now. This - this is already uncharted territory. You've waded in deep; you've thrown everything to the wind. There were bound to be consequences, casualties.

"I haven't been sleeping," you tell him, because you can't tell anyone else. 

"Maybe you should try now." He looks back up at you, eyes almost pleading. But you're not wasting a second. You haven't regretted a single moment of this, with him, you haven't. You're not going to start now.

"No, don't want to." You know how petulant it sounds, but you don't really care right now. You deserve this, deserve a couple hours of pretending you're somewhere far, far away where none of it really matters anymore.

"Steven -"

"You're not me mam."

He gives you the trademark disgruntled look, and you have to smile, because there it is. It's still there.

*

"It's been ten years, you know."

"You haven't changed a bit."

You scoff at that. Xabi isn't one for trite sentiments; he never has been.

"You didn't know me before I was captain, before I was _this_."

"I feel like I do," he says, like a confession. "I remember how nervous you used to get sometimes. And I would look at you and you were so young, still, you looked like an overgrown child. But you looked like a giant on the pitch. I was sad - for both of us - that we never got to be as young as we were."

"You made me feel young though. Made me feel like I could be someone else if I wanted it enough."

"But you never did, did you?"

"No. Never."

*

Wanderlust isn't your area, never has been. It's always just been an afterthought, a backdrop. Life isn't about cities and oceans and architecture and skylines; it's about wins and losses and heartbreak and triumph. That's what you remember. You remember hotel rooms, airports, streets, but they're hard to place. Mostly, you remember by feelings.

Foreign cities are just solid colours in your mind: red, dark grey, blue. There's no nuance to them. You don't know what falling in love with some distant land feels like. Although you have fallen in love in many distant lands, with people, with moments, with masses all in red, with songs and lights and tastes. Maybe all you ever did was fall in love with home all over again.

People have been leaving you for a long time, but you've never felt _left behind_ before. Never wondered what those cities look like in a different light, at a different time of the year. What it would be like to see the seasons change, see the colours change as you get to know it and live in it and become a breathing, moving part of it. As you make the colours change too.

"I never really felt trapped in this city until I decided to leave." There are too many reminders, on every street corner, a lifetime of memories; this city is soaked in them, like a watercolour painting, like the shades of your soul on display for the world to see. It's like the walls are closing in on you, making it hard for you to draw breath.

"Everyone has to leave home, eventually," he says, and when he says _home_ , you always wonder if he's thinking about the same place you're thinking of. Still.

"I guess that's one way to think of it. What was it like for you?"

"It's - it's lonely. But it also feels like you're who you're supposed to be. Like you're finally a real person. Like you still exist away from everything you've ever known. It feels good. Like you have control of your own destiny."

Xabi's been shaping his own destiny since forever. You're not sure how to even begin.

"It's scary. Like, more scary than it should be. Sometimes I think that everything in my life was predetermined somehow. Like I didn't choose any of it. Like this is the only real decision I've ever made for myself."

Xabi looks at you, consideringly.

"What about me, though?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, do you think this, us, was destined?"

You've thought about it, thought about how easily it could've never happened, you could've never met. Just one choice altered, a different path taken, and it would've been over before it even began. But you also hate the idea that something else is responsible for this that isn't just you and him.

"Maybe."

He shakes his head, but it's not annoyed, just kind of sorry.

"I don't believe in destiny. But I believe in faith. I believe that faith can make things happen, inspire men to greatness, turn the impossible into reality. But only because I've _seen_ it."

"Do you have faith in _us_ , then?" Because it's been ten years and you're both still here, in another hotel room, another city (that you will both be visitors to soon, that will always connect you, always be home), and you haven't forgotten one minute of it.

"I've always had faith in us," he says simply.

*

It's a dumb game you don't play. Not with each other, at least. You just look at him and play it in your head. But you haven't for a while. You gave it up when he left. You only catch glimpses of it when you meet him in cities that belong to neither of you, when you get lost in them with him, when it feels like nothing exists but the two of you. Everything else is just an illusion. For one moment in time. 

All the other times, you forget how to dream.

Until he says, "In some other universe, we both retire here. In some other universe, we live in some tiny flat in some big city."

"In some other life, we buy a house in Istanbul and adopt twelve kids."

Xabi gives you a real smile for the first time.

"Maybe we will someday. Maybe years and years from now, we'll meet right back here, bump into each other on the street, and it'll be like starting over. Living a second life."

It's nice to think about but there's only one though. You can't be anyone else.

"In some other life, we meet when we're kids and our story's over before it even begins," you breathe out. He's quiet then, so still, and then his hand's detangling from yours, his fingertips are lightly grazing your cheekbone, and he's reaching up to place a precise, delicate kiss on your forehead.

It feels like _thank you_ , it feels like _I'm glad, I'm so, so happy, that we had this_. In the end, you wouldn't give it up, not for anything. Not for any fairytale you could conjure.

Your story doesn't go like any of those. Your story goes like this:

_Once upon a time, a man of logic fell in love with a man of faith who had the weight of the world on his shoulders. The man of logic learnt to believe too, and he helped him carry his burden. But when men of logic fall in love, they know that there are always more important things, more important paths to follow. Men of logic have missions to carry out. Men of faith never lose their faith. They may lose everything else, their love and their purpose, but faith is infinite and everlasting. It will live long after they're dead, will live after their children's children are dead, as long as it is passed on and on and on._

*

You sit up after what feels like hours and hours but time isn't moving in this room, you're sure, and you turn your back to him like if you just take one more look, you won't be able to leave. Like you'll be frozen in place by some mythological curse. You almost wish that was true.

But then he's sitting right next to you, and his hand's holding yours again.

"I feel like if I stay, there won't be anything left of me. My name will live on forever, but I'll just fade away into nothing."

It's kind of shameful and kind of selfish, but it also kind of feels like you're ripping yourself in two, so it balances out, you suppose. You know he understands; the people who matter understand.

There are tears staining his cheeks now, and he says, "They'll love you forever. And I - I love you now, and always. I promise."

You wipe away some of this tears, because you don't ever want him to cry for you. You don't want anyone to. It's not a funeral. It's just - growing up, after all. And that means leaving things behind.

Your hands are framing his face, and he's trying so hard to be strong for you. He looks twenty-two again, all bright, shining eyes and shy smile, and he's always going to be that brave, beautiful boy when you think of him.

You kind of want to know what you look like in his mind. Maybe you look like the water or the grass; like a small child hanging on to a trophy for dear life; like thousands of people singing at the top of their lungs; like blinding, burning red.

"I love you," you say, not because it's the last time, but because it's yours, yours alone, and that's something no one can ever take away. Even long after you're gone.

You don't kiss, because that will sound too much like the goodbye neither of you are going to say.

This is more like 'See you soon.'

*

You just stare at the empty elevator for a moment, but you don't get in.

And then you hear, "Wait," and when you turn around, he's already right there, grabbing your arm, leaning up to kiss you, brief but deep, like it's only the beginning.

"For luck," he says, and then he's gone, without looking back at you.

 _That's it_ , you think. _Enough now. Enough._


End file.
